Chapter 1 #2
‘He’s not with his wife,’ I explain, exasperated.
‘They’ve been on and off for years. I don’t know why they haven’t announced it, probably because they’re both hoping they’ll try again, but Benji is filing for divorce as soon as they’ve told the media they’re not together. ’ I pick at a mark on my leg.
‘And you know that for a fact, do you?’
Does she think I’m lying? Or that I’m simply stupid?
We pull up outside the studio and Dennis gets out of the car. I can already hear the camera shutters from those men that follow me everywhere.
‘Yes, Mauve, I do. I’ve known Benji for years and everyone has known for a while that their marriage is struggling, but the press have nothing except some rumours.’
‘And that he was going to file for a divorce is definitely true and he wasn’t just saying that to get you into bed?’
‘He didn’t get me into bed,’ I insist. It was a harmless kiss at a party and then we left separately. As was delicately pointed out to me on Instagram, he has a child. ‘And even if he did just tell me that, how is any of this my fault?’
I get out of the car and follow Dennis into the building, leaving Mauve in the car with Kareem to find a parking spot.
‘Hey,’ my voice echoes in the high ceilings of the building. The hoarseness is back, and I have to clear my throat again. ‘I’m here for Eric Lancaster’s Laughs.’
‘No problem. Ms Martin?’ the receptionist asks.
This talk show appearance is poorly timed with what happened last night and what the world seems to think I did, but my publicist and best friend, Jess, will have it fixed for me. She’ll have a plan whether I can clear my name on Eric’s show or ignore it until it goes away.
‘Sorry, I’m a bit late,’ I smile politely.
I’m not late. Not really. Only two minutes after the agreed time, but something deep inside me will always think I’m late unless I’m five minutes early.
I guess it goes back to being a teenager and desperately trying to make it in an industry which wasn’t exactly welcoming to the kid from the council estate.
I freeze when I spot a flash of brunette curls at the top of the stairs, designer stubble looking right back at me. If James hadn’t already done my make-up, I’d want to rub my eyes. To make sure that I’m not seeing things. I turn back to the receptionist, but she swims in and out of focus.
I smooth the dress over my stomach. The Versace is beautiful: scoop neckline and a short skirt, gold hardware detailing the straps, loose in all the right places, tighter in others.
It was the first of three options my stylist offered, and I didn’t want to have to choose anything. To make any more decisions.
‘Oh, you’re fine. It’s barely past the hour,’ the receptionist says, her voice muffled by my heart hammering in my ears.
Luc Nicholls and his familiar brown curls walk down the stairs, scanning his card against the gates to let him out. Dennis clocks him and Luc smiles, Dennis grunting back in acknowledgement. A friendly greeting by Dennis’s standards.
I face away from Luc, clearing my throat before turning back. His eyebrows draw up, one corner of his mouth lifting more prominently than the other.
Now, the only thing I can think is, What are you doing here?
‘Luc.’ I gulp down a steadying breath.
My heart somehow pounds more than thirty seconds ago. I turn around and spot Kareem escorting Mauve along a line of people queuing to get into the studio. She’s signing autographs, probably promising to pass on messages to me that she’s never going to remember.
It must be stressful having a daughter like me, I guess. A complete mess. So uncaring that she doesn’t care that her mother has lost both her parents and her husband in a few years because the daughter is all too concerned with how they’re her grandparents and dad.
‘It’s so lovely to see you, Sienna.’ Luc opens his arms and pulls me into a stiff, one-armed hug. My overly hairsprayed hair crunches against his arm and I cringe. ‘What’s it been… ten years?’
‘What are you doing here?’ I fiddle with the skin around my fingernails without looking at my hands.
‘I guess I technically work here.’
‘You don’t work on Blood and Water anymore?’
It makes something ping deep in my stomach that I don’t know what he does for work anymore, that so much time has passed that he could have had three different jobs or lived abroad for a bit, got married, and I’d never know.
He shakes his head, back straight. ‘I write for Hostile Minds.’
My jaw drops. ‘No way! I love that show.’
There’s some evidence that I need to sit and watch the credits more often, rather than using them as my phone breaks while binge watching.
Luc steps back and something in my brain fizzes.
The floor shifts under me and, for mere seconds, it’s like I’ve floated up out of my body to watch myself from ten years ago.
The way Luc, as the most junior writer at the time on Eric Lancaster’s Laughs, had rushed through the barriers to collect me from reception when the runner was off sick.
I’d introduced myself and then my cheeks flushed.
‘You know, just in case you thought he was Sienna,’ I’d added, gesturing to Dennis.
‘I can see where he’d be confused,’ Dennis had said, folding his arms across his chest and standing with his feet shoulder-width apart, as Dennis usually does.
‘I’m sure you have a beautiful voice, sir,’ Luc had replied, and a laugh rumbled in the back of my throat to hide the way my skin had flushed under my make-up. Did he think I had a beautiful voice?
The receptionist is typing into her computer, getting more and more flustered the longer Sienna Martin stands in the lobby.
My phone is burning against my hip in my bag.
I’m desperate to take it out, to see whether Benji has made a statement yet that I’m decidedly not a homewrecker.
A statement to save me, which a statement from my own team couldn’t do.
Everyone has made their minds up about me now.
‘Good to see you in the flesh again, Sienna. To know you’re still alive and it’s not some AI thing I’ve been seeing on the internet for the past ten years.’
‘It’s me,’ I croak out.
‘I better take it in now before you disappear again.’
He frowns at me, and I don’t blame him. I don’t know why I thought we’d immediately fall back into what we once were.
It doesn’t occur to me until I hear a grumble from the receptionist that I might have been dropped from Eric Lancaster’s Laughs for supposedly being ‘a slut’.
Was there a moral conduct clause in this contract?
I don’t think there was. And I’ve technically done nothing wrong.
Benji isn’t enjoying this same level of…
I was going to say criticism, but I think that suggests a level of fault.
I look back at the door, at the queue to get into the studio which is now so long I would have to fight to get out of the building, bodies of all shapes, sizes and ages standing in an ordered line hoping for their chance to get into the studio.
I saw it last time I was here, but that time was for Alex Pauls, Oscar award-winning Hollywood star. Dubbed the new Hugh Grant at the time.
This time, it’s for me.
‘The runner is off sick, so we’re just seeing if we can get…’
‘Oh, don’t worry, Fiona. I can take her.’ Luc straightens and turns to me. ‘Looks like you’ve got me again.’